To survey researchers about their experiences of harassment, we emailed 59,653 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science’s publisher, representing a wide range of disciplines. Recruitment and reminder emails, and a printout of the survey from the survey platform (Alchemer), are available at osf.io/3bn9u.
Because of the sensitive nature of the subject, Science applied for ethical review of the survey through BRANY (Biomedical Research Alliance of New York), an independent review board. The IRB protocol (BRANY SBER IRB #: 21-141-972) is available at osf.io/3bn9u.
Cathleen O’Grady, a contributing correspondent for Science, designed and conducted the survey, analyzed the data and published a story about it in the news section of Science magazine, March 25, 2022. Meta-scientist Tim Errington advised on the IRB process, survey methods, and statistical analysis. Martin Enserink, International News Editor at Science, provided editorial input.
Of the 59,653 emails sent, we received 1281 responses. Of the 59,653 AAAS members who met the survey criteria (those registered in research-related roles), 44,468 were opted in to receive communications from AAAS/Science. Of this sample, we received 1281 responses. A similar survey was sent to 9585 COVID-19 researchers; 511 responded. In order to allow participants to share only the information they were comfortable sharing, and in line with the IRB-approved consent procedure, all questions were optional. This means that many questions were not answered by all participants, and have some “NA” (empty) responses.
Below, we show summary results for each question in the survey. As with any survey, it is very likely that certain kinds of people responded more than others. Targets of abuse may have been more likely to respond, and in order to try to limit the effect of this, our recruitment email specifically asked people with no experience of harassment to fill in the survey. However, the skew could also operate in the opposite direction: People who have experienced harassment could also be more worried about anonymity or less willing to discuss their experiences. Either way, the fact that respondents self-select into filling in the survey mean that the results cannot be taken to represent scientists more generally. These results also rely on self-report and on invididuals’ interpretations of our questions, which further undermine the quality of all survey data. Results should all be interpreted with caution.
Because of the number of different questions and because we did not have specific hypotheses about our results, we have treated this as an exploratory dataset. We have not used significance testing, which could lend undue weight to tentative findings, instead calculating only descriptive statistics and effect sizes. For a discussion of the inappropriate use of null hypothesis significance testing, see: Szucs, D., & Ioannidis, J. (2017). When null hypothesis significance testing is unsuitable for research: a reassessment. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 11, 390.
For the sake of transparency, and to allow further analysis of the dataset, data and analysis code are available at osf.io/3bn9u. However, given the sensitive nature of the subject, the public dataset has been anonymized, removing all potentially identifying details (including answers related to location, discipline, and demographics). We are open to collaboration in further analyzing the data, but access to the full dataset will be dependent on additional ethical review. Please contact us at intimidationsurvey@cathleenogrady.com if you are interested in this.
Correction note: An earlier version of this write-up misstated the number of people the AAAS survey was sent to. Although 59,653 members met the survey criteria, some had opted out of AAAS communications. As a result, the survey was only sent to 44,468 people.
All rows without consent were removed during data cleaning.
All rows without confirmation of conducting research as main professional activity were removed during data cleaning.
Discipline names are those used by AAAS in its categorization of members. Participants could choose only one option.
Free-text responses included industry advice, involvement with environmental and community groups, involvement in legal cases or court testimony, and being mentioned in (but not interviewed for) news articles about research.
To gauge each respondent’s overall level of exposure, we created a composite “exposure intensity” score that assigned a point for each separate publicity venue, multiplied by the middle range of each frequency category. For instance, someone who said they’d been on TV news would get one point; if they said this had happened twice, it would be 2 points; if they said 3-5 times, it would be 4 points (the middle of the 3-5 range). If they said they had also been on radio news twice, this would give them an additional two points, for a total score of 6.
107 out of 1281 respondents reported no exposure at all, resulting in a score of 0. Progressively fewer researchers had higher and higher exposure scores.
Participants could select multiple options.
Participants were asked a series of questions about whether they had experienced a range of harassment types as a result of their research. If a participant responded “yes” to a particular kind of harassment, they were then asked about venue, onset, and frequency of this type of harassment, before proceeding to the next question. This means that responses to questions about onset, frequency and venue are from a subset of the total number of participants (only those who responded “yes” to the relevant harassment question).
Each participant was assigned a “score” reflecting how many types of harassment they reported. For instance, a participant reporting only one kind of harassment would receive a score of 1; someone reporting eight kinds of harassment would receive a score of 8.
Out of 1281 respondents, 631 (49.3%) reported no harassment, and 650 (50.7%) reported at least one kind of harassment. Some participants report experiencing multiple categories of harassment.
| Harassment score | Number of respondents |
|---|---|
| 0 | 631 |
| 1 | 226 |
| 2 | 132 |
| 3 | 95 |
| 4 | 54 |
| 5 | 33 |
| 6 | 31 |
| 7 | 21 |
| 8 | 17 |
| 9 | 12 |
| 10 | 10 |
| 11 | 5 |
| 12 | 3 |
| 13 | 3 |
| 14 | 4 |
| 15 | 3 |
| 19 | 1 |
Participants could select multiple categories. Personal insults, attacks on credibility, and excessive contact from an individual were the most common.
In contrast to the survey of COVID-19 researchers, email, in-person threats, and phone calls were all more common than abuse on Twitter. While the COVID-19 survey asked about abuse since the onset of the pandemic, this survey asked about abuse over the entire career of respondents, which in many cases likely spans decades before the advent of social media. Free text responses included mentions of being notified by the police of being on the “bomb list” of anti-vivisection activists; attacks through personal websites; and complaints to employers.
For many respondents, harassment has been ongoing for decades.
Some respondents reported multiple instances of personal insults, comments on appearance, insults targeting group identities, and attacks on credibility. Some reported that even severe abuse, including doxxing and wishes of harm or death, had occurred more than 50 times.
To gauge each respondent’s overall level of harassment, we created a composite “harassment intensity” score that assigned a point for each separate kind of harassment, multiplied by the middle range of each frequency category. For instance, someone who said they had received personal insults would receive one point; if they said it had been twice, it would be 2 points; if they said 3-5 times, it would be 4 points (the middle of the 3-5 range). If they said they had also had death threats twice, that would give an additional two points, for a total score of 6.
Because these scores are based on the simple harassment scores described above, the same numbers apply: Out of 1281 respondents, 631 (49.3%) have harassment intensity scores of zero, and 650 (50.7%) have scores of at least one. Those participants who reported multiple categories of harassment at very high frequencies have scores in the hundreds.
We calculated the association between harassment intensity and exposure intensity using Spearman’s rank correlation. There was a positive association between the variables, r = 0.42, 95% CI [0.38, 0.47]. This is classified as a “medium” effect size, and is slightly lower than the relationship found in the survey of COVID-19 researchers. It is crucial to note that there could be different explanations for this relationship: For instance, publicity may lead directly to more harassment, but scientists with greater prominence may receive both more harassment and more interview invitations.
We calculated the association between research discipline and harassment intensity using a point-biserial correlation, and found no association (r = 0.01, 95% CI[-0.04, 0.07]. The research discipline categories used by AAAS are broad, making it likely that detecting any disciplines strongly associated with harassment (for instance, climate science) would require a more granular list of disciplines.
Only participants who reported at least one category of harassment (n = 650) were asked questions in this section. Participants who reported no harassment moved directly to demographic questions.
Participants were asked four separate questions, one for each kind of support. If they said they had received a particular kind of support, they were then asked about their level of satisfaction with that support.
As in the COVID-19 survey, low numbers reported receiving support; however, of those who did receive support, the majority said they were satisfied or extremely satisfied with the help they received.
Many free text responses noted that employers had been the perpetrators of harassment themselves, or that they had asked for and received no help. Some noted proactive and thorough responses from institutions.
Respondents noted that they would have liked legal support, mental health support, mentorship, and guidance on best practices in handling abuse.
Many respondents noted abuse related to the use of animals in their research; others noted abuse related to evolution research. Some described the emotional impacts of abuse, including long-term career damage and self-doubt.
Many respondents noted that abuse had come from colleagues or social contacts. One noted that complaints to their institution had resulted in investigations and eventual acquittal. And as above, many responses noted that they had been targeted by anti-vivisection campaigners.
In order to avoid excluding any particular group, this was offered as a free text response. Given the responses to the following questions indicating that the survey population was predominantly ethnic majority/other groups who do not experience prejudice, these results were not analyzed.
This question was intended to capture a global range of minority identities.
In some countries, an ethnic majority may still experience systemic disadvantage (for example, Black people in South Africa). This question was designed to separate the experience of systemic disadvantage from the question of majority/minority status.
Many free text responses noted the effects of sexism, racism, and the effects of both combined.
Small associations were found between harassment and disability, and harassment and experience of prejudice, with no associations found between harassment and other demographic variables and harassment. However, these results should be interpreted with extreme caution. As is clear from the demographic analyses above, there were relatively few representatives of minority groups in the survey sample, meaning that any real effect may not have been detectable in this sample. There may also be multiple explanations for an association, or lack of association: For instance, people who feel particularly at risk of abuse may self-select out of public attention at a higher rate, and thereby avoid more extreme harassment.
| Lower 95% CI | Point-Biserial | Upper 95% CI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prejudice | 0.0996491 | 0.1566038 | 0.2125356 |
| Disability | 0.0818337 | 0.1391574 | 0.1955635 |
| Minority | 0.0109174 | 0.0688832 | 0.1263875 |
| Gender | 0.0007925 | 0.0586474 | 0.1161109 |
| Age | -0.0838799 | -0.0264999 | 0.0310553 |
| Career stage | -0.1040209 | -0.0462908 | 0.0117502 |
| Sexual orientation | -0.1102690 | -0.0525196 | 0.0055832 |
| Sector | -0.1192608 | -0.0593330 | 0.0010255 |
Science will donate:
$173.87 to GiveDirectly
$169.17 to Malaria Consortium
$156.95 to COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund
With thanks to all participants.